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Record W3196680135 · doi:10.1162/posc_a_00391

Two Myths of Representational Measurement

2021· article· en· W3196680135 on OpenAlexaff
Eran Tal

Bibliographic record

VenuePerspectives on Science · 2021
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldArts and Humanities
TopicPhilosophy and History of Science
Canadian institutionsMcGill University
Fundersnot available
KeywordsAxiomDomain (mathematical analysis)Axiomatic systemInterpretation (philosophy)Computer scienceCharacterization (materials science)MythologyQualitative analysisQualitative propertyEpistemologyTheoretical computer scienceQualitative researchMathematicsSociologyMachine learningPhilosophyPhysicsMathematical analysisGeometry

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Abstract Axiomatic measurement theories are commonly interpreted as claiming that, in order to quantify an empirical domain, the qualitative structure of data about that domain must be mapped to a numerical structure. Such mapping is supposed to be established independently, i.e., without presupposing that the domain can be quantified. This interpretation is based on two myths: that it is possible to independently infer the qualitative structure of objects from empirical data, and that the adequacy of numerical representations can only be justified by mapping such qualitative structures to numerical ones. I dispel the myths and show that axiomatic measurement theories provide an inadequate characterization of the kind of evidence required to detect quantities.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.031
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.066
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesScience and technology studies
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Theoretical or conceptual · Consensus signal: Theoretical or conceptual
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: none
Teacher disagreement score0.998
Threshold uncertainty score0.163

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0310.066
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0010.001
Bibliometrics0.0040.002
Science and technology studies0.0020.061
Scholarly communication0.0100.020
Open science0.0030.007
Research integrity0.0050.010
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0040.001

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.122
GPT teacher head0.310
Teacher spread0.188 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

Study designTheoretical or conceptual
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations14
Published2021
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

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